


a glance that holds the world and all its seas

by JacknessofHearts



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Gyojin-tou | Fishman Island, Introspection, M/M, Nosebleed, One Piece Bingo, Under the Sea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28389183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacknessofHearts/pseuds/JacknessofHearts
Summary: “God,again?!” Usopp looks down at Sanji who's sitting against a column and tilting his head back while pressing a tissue against his bleeding nose.“Shu' ub,” Sanji growls. Or, he tries to. It sounds rather unimpressive.“You're terrible,” Usopp says but he can't hold back the fond smile that's been blooming all over his face again and again ever since he's stepped foot on the Sunny after returning to Sabaody.*It's the big party after defeating Hody Jones. Usopp gets Sanji away from all the mermaids.(Honestly, Sanji, these nosebleeds are disgusting.)
Relationships: Usopp/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 8
Kudos: 108
Collections: One Piece Bingo 2020/2021





	a glance that holds the world and all its seas

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first entry for the One Piece Bingo. My prompt was "under the sea". 
> 
> Sanji's nosebleeds are the worst thing ever, so what can I do but use them for myself?
> 
> *
> 
> Title from "Sun Stone" by Octavio Paz, tr. Eliot Weinberger

“God, _again?!_ ” Usopp looks down at Sanji who's sitting against a column and tilting his head back while pressing a tissue against his bleeding nose.

“Shu' ub,” Sanji growls. Or, he tries to. It sounds rather unimpressive.

“You're terrible,” Usopp says but he can't hold back the fond smile that's been blooming all over his face again and again ever since he's stepped foot on the Sunny after returning to Sabaody.

He's so incredibly glad to be back with them, with his crew. Two years seem even longer in hindsight, somehow, just a stretch of endless time trying not to get eaten by an island and hoping he won't forget his best friends' faces in the meantime.

“Yeah, well,” Sanji sighs, his voice a high nasal whine that only adds to his disgrace, “you'd be like this, too, if you'd have gone through the same hell.”

Usopp raises his brows at him. “I sincerely doubt that.”

They're somewhere in the ruins of Neptune's palace, a bit to the side of the party still raging on in true Straw Hat manner, music blasting around them, a seemingly never-ending chain of pots and plates and platters filled with delicious dishes being brought into the room, mermaids gliding in and out of sight with them.

It's something out of a fairytale, Usopp can't help but think. Like out of one of the books his mother used to read to him as a child, about strange lands with flying children, about beautiful women selling their voices to be with beautiful men, about wondrous melodies dragging unsuspecting sailors into their demise.

It's just like a fairytale, except it's real.

Brook has taken over the stage, performing some kind of rock opera with the mermaid singer, effortlessly harmonizing with her all while asking some adoring fans for their bras. His laugh is loud and joyful even as Nami hits him over the head with her heavy tankard without spilling a drop of beer.

Actually, there's laughter everywhere.

Chopper giggling with Camie, Robin's soft chuckle and Franky's boisterous laugh, Zoro more bellowing than laughing while drinking all of Neptune's army under the table. And over all of it, of course, Luffy's sing-song joy, all teeth and happiness.

“I missed this,” he says, sitting down next to Sanji.

“Duh,” comes Sanji's dry reply, still a bit muffled by the tissue, and the blood in his nose.

“Seriously,” Usopp says, knocking his knee against Sanji's, “the laughing and the partying and… everything. Being together like this. I really _missed_ it.”

“I—,” Sani starts, but then two mermaids drift past them, waving and giggling at them, and a whine escapes his throat as he pulls his knees up to his chest and hides his face in his hands. He says something, too, but Usopp doesn't catch it and he's pretty sure he doesn't need to anyway.

“Where have you been?” he asks instead, curiosity getting the better of him. He's been meaning to ask since they left Sabaody, he's been meaning to ask everyone, actually, but everything happened so fast after their departure. “You're worse than usual.”

“Thanks,” Sanji says, still not looking up. “I hate you, too.”

Something stings at those words.

It surprises Usopp, a bit at least. Not the words themselves but that he still feels that way about them. Apparently, some things haven't changed, even after two years.

He feels it flutter in his chest, this weird thing he's never dared to look too closely at, afraid of the shape it could take if he did.

“Come on,” he tells Sanji, pushing at him until he's standing up with him. “I'll take you somewhere safer. Chopper will kill you if he has to get one of us another blood transfusion.”

He expects more of a resistance but Sanji lets himself be led away almost willingly, only risking to look up and swoon at the feet—er, at the tail of a mermaid twice. The grin on his face can only be described as _dreamy_ , as he keeps muttering praises even after they've left the grand ballroom they've been partying in.

“They're so beautiful,” he sighs. “Their hair looks so soft and their skin so shiny. And their tails, they glitter just like in a—”

“Just like a fairytale,” Usopp says.

Sanji frowns at him. “If you see it, too, why are you giving me such a hard time about it?”

“Because I have eyes,” Usopp says, and snorts. “And I still don't lose half of my blood just by looking. Which is _disgusting_ , by the way.”

He opens the first door he finds, leading them into a dark, deserted hallway, rows of colums supporting the high ceiling and casting long shadows along the floor. There's this strange, blue light coming in through a large archway, the open sea behind it only kept out by a bubble.

They sit down at the edge of a staircase leading outside. The marble tiles of the palace floor are cool under Usopp's hands, smooth and shimmering in a kind of green-blue colour he doesn't have a name for. He's already thinking about painting it as soon as he's back on the ship when he looks up and finds Sanji looking back at him.

He's still pressing a tissue against his nose, obscuring even more of his face than usual.

The thing he doesn't want to inspect too closely hums, a low kind of thrum vibrating between his ribs. It's shaking just enough to blur his vision, to distract him, to leave his weak spots open.

“Did your left eyebrow always look like that?” Usopp finds himself asking all of a sudden, before he has a chance to bite his tongue. “Um, I mean…”

Apparently, he's still great at putting his foot in his mouth, especially when his heart's hammering in a fast, familiar beat. Especially when Sanji's looking at him like…

Yeah, like what?

Sanji narrows his eyes at him.

“I just… I always thought you were embarrassed to show it or something. Because it was burnt off or bright blue or…”

“Or like this?” Sanji snorts, which seems to be a mistake because of the nosebleed thing, and he goes a little cross-eyed trying to stare down his own nose. “Dammit.”

“Wait.” Usopp digs through his pockets until he finds a clean tissue — mostly clean, at least, if you ignore the dusting of gunpowder and earth that seems to cling to the majority of his belongings these days.

“Ugh,” Sanji grunts but he swaps his used tissue for the one without blood on it.

“Where did you spend all your time anyway?” Usopp asks and immediately wishes he hadn't when Sanji's expression gets grim.

“Hell,” he says. “The worst place on earth. Couldn't catch my breath for a second.”

There's a bite behind his words that Usopp isn't used to hearing from him. Sure, Sanji's always been all snark and quick to anger but this bitterness feels sharper, more pronounced. It's also too new for Usopp to tell if it's an act or genuine. Two years ago, he'd been so good at reading people's lies as if they'd been telling him the truth, but everything feels off kilter now, after such a long time alone.

So, maybe Sanji's telling the truth, even if it feels like he's lying.

And Usopp thinks about Boin Archipelago, about restless nights and the fear of being swallowed and never seeing his crew again if he closes his eyes just a second too early. “Yeah. I get that.”

“You do? Where did that fucking Warlord send you, then?” He takes a deep breath in through his mouth. “And please don't say an island full of beautiful women, I don't think I could take that.”

Usopp snorts, uneasiness lifting a bit. “Nah, I think, Luffy got that part covered.”

Sanji makes a noise somewhere between a moan and a sob, and tightens his grip on his tissue.

Usopp can't help but laugh at him desperately trying not to think about Boa Hancock. It serves him right.

“Don't worry, there weren't many women on my island,” he says, then adds, “actually, there weren't that many people at all. The island ate most of them pretty fast.” He realizes his conversational tone, how he says it almost like a joke but it still only really hits when Sanji throws him a confused look.

“You mean, there were animals on the island…?”

“No. I mean, yes, that too. But the main problem was the island itself. Big, carnivorous plant, feeds once a day.”

“Are you lying, long-nose?” Sanji squints at him.

Something flutters in Usopp's chest, squirming and restless, something that he has to shake off with laughter. “Actually, no. The island just folds in on itself and if you're not careful and don't hold on to something, it swallows you. At night, you can even hear it digesting. That's louder than you'd think by the way, like the whole jungle vibrates around you.”

Sanji has dropped the hand holding the tissue against his nose and his face is doing something weird and complicated. “Jungle?”

“Yeah, with all kinds of weird plants and animals and these huge bugs. You'd have hated it,” he chuckles and it rings through the empty room, the sound bouncing off of the marble walls and echoing back at him in a distorted copy of his laughter.

It adds to the strange way Sanji looks at him, horrified until his gaze shifts into something soft and weirdly open. “Usopp…”

Said like that, his name sounds less like his name and more like a tender thing, easily breakable or maybe already broken. Usopp hates it immediately.

“Don't worry,” he says, and feels a calmness settle in himself, in between all those shaking parts he still has to clutch close to his chest, so nothing falls out of him. “It's over now. And it's made me a lot stronger.” It's true, too. Those two years on Boin may have been the hardest years of his life but they've shaped him more than they've broken him.

They stare out into the ocean for a while, at swarms of fish so large they almost seem to form an entirely new creature, at shadows drifting over ripples in the sand, at plants on the bottom of the sea swaying in the pull of the water, at the soft, dark blue light breaking on the surface of the bubble and glittering on the stone steps in front of them.

“I lied,” Sanji says, suddenly, after a few minutes of silence and still so quietly Usopp almost misses it.

“You wha—,” he startles, thoughts still half on Boin, half on a shark gliding past the bubble.

“I… I _lied_ , okay, I—,” Sanji interrupts himself, buries his face in his hands and groans like he's dying. “It wasn't the worst place on earth. Not even close, apparently.”

It feels like missing a step when going down the stairs, even as a small sense of satisfaction settles inside of him. Seems like he didn't lose all of his magic after all.

Still, Usopp frowns, because some things don't add up, like he's stumbling when Sanji's already ten steps ahead. Like there's something he's _missing._ “What? Because I was on an island that wanted to eat me? But you didn't know that, so you couldn't have been lying.”

“Sure, but…” He hesitates, looking at his fingers, rubbing at his knuckles. His hands still look the same as two years ago, spotless, unblemished.

When he speaks up again, Sanji's voice takes on a tone Usopp can't quite put his finger on. Every hint of his usual brashness seems lost in it. “There were good people there, you know. They took care of me.”

“They trained you,” Usopp guesses. Because what else could he say? He doesn't have much to go on, here.

“That, too.”

Sanji's always been thin lines and sharp angles, all defensive and ready to lash out. Two years ago, though, his suit hadn't looked as crisp and immaculate as it does now, every crease deliberate, cuff links polished and shimmering even in the low light of the deep sea.

Before Sabaody, before everything, Usopp had sometimes looked at Sanji like he was allowed to, had let his hand linger on Sanji's stiff shoulders or the tip of his elbow like he imagines a kid touching a precious family heirloom would do, knowing they're not supposed to, knowing they're treading on thin ice.

This Sanji, though, holds himself like a work of art in a museum, signs all over reading, _You can look but I'm too expensive for you to even think about touching me._

So, Usopp looks. He'd guessed that their experiences during those two years would differ, that all of them would come back with parts of them unrecognizably changed. He's seen it in his own reflection, in the way his mind still jumps to the worst possible outcome, only to race onwards to the best possible solution, or how he feels something raw and hungry gnaw at his insides whenever he looks into the night and feels it looking back.

These things just happen when you live on an island that's as alive as the person sitting next to you. When the earth underneath your feet and fingers brims with energy, feeling you up, tasting you.

So, Usopp looks.

 _Self-combusts on contact_ , every warning sign written over Sanji's expression says.

 _Too hot to handle_ , his movements warn as he's pulling a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket.

And, _Handle with care._

So, Usopp looks.

Insects carry their toughest parts on their backs, exo-skelettons for everyone to see, so getting to their soft cores is a challenge. Usopp wonders if that's what this is, this Sanji two years later, black suit like the shining shell of an atlas beetle.

Sanji's lighter _clicks_ and a flame flickers to life, igniting the cigarette hanging between his lips.

“So, what did you do?” Usopp asks, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

Breathing out, cloud of tobacco forming around his head, Sanji's already tense lines grow even stiffer.

Usopp is reminded of drawing his slingshot, the rubber bands stretched almost to their breaking point.

“I cooked,” Sanji says, voice rough, almost too casually. “Got a lot of new recipes to keep all of you in top shape.”

Suddenly, he turns to look at Usopp again, frowning. “What did you eat on your death isle? Was is all plant-based? You're not vegan now, are you? Better tell me before we get back on the ship, I didn't really consider—”

Something knocks loose in Usopp and he can't help but laugh, the sounds bubbling out of him in a wave of relief. It's a lot like Sanji two years ago, this rambling about food, this special kind of worry, and Usopp _knows_ _this_ , of course he knows that not everything has changed in their time apart, but it's still good to see it with his own eyes, to bear witness.

“Boin has a ramen river.”

“ _Shut the fuck up._ ”

“Honestly! It had all kinds of plants and animals you could eat but the closer you got to the middle of the island, the better the food got, until, you know. Ramen river.”

He likes the way Sanji squints at him, intently listening, putting two and two together and not just letting Usopp's stories wash over him. Because they're not just that anymore, not just stories, not something he made up.

It makes all the difference.

“Like a venus flytrap,” Sanji says. “Luring you in.”

Usopp grins, wide and excited. “Exactly like that!”

“But doesn't that mean you couldn't eat all that stuff?”

“Kind of,” Usopp shrugs. “It's dangerous because once you eat all that, you can't really stop anymore.” He shivers, thinks of the tiredness in his bones after indulging in the food the island provided, thinks of the heavyness of his body. “But there's other stuff you can eat. Fruits and roots and animals you can hunt. Mostly bugs and scorpions and snakes but I killed a sea king once, too!”

He probably sounds prouder now than he was then, when he'd almost ended as sea king food himself after only narrowly escaping death by man-eating island.

It's still fun to see Sanji sputter and almost drop his cigarette in the process.

“You killed a sea—,” he starts, then shakes his head, the corners of his mouth pulling down. “ _Bugs_?”

Of course he gets hung up on that.

“Sure. And now that I think about it,” Usopp begins, grin spreading slowly, and he feels Sanji getting suspicious already but he can't help it. “They do have lots of protein, do you think you could cook me—”

He narrowly escapes a kick against his shins, pulling them out of the way just because he expected that kind of reaction, but he still squeals a bit before laughter bubbles up again. “I'm _kidding_! I'm kidding!”

“You _better_ be, long-nose,” Sanji growls, “I didn't spend two years perfecting my craft to cook fucking roaches and shit.”

“But if we did find ourselves in dire need of food, you could…”

“Let's pray that it doesn't come to that.”

But he doesn't say no.

Something shifts in the air, after that, even more than after Sanji's earlier admission. Maybe it's because he's on his second cigarette already or because he's finally stopped bleeding, but Usopp kind of wants to take credit, too, for the way some of the tension seems to roll off of Sanji's shoulders.

“I'm really looking forward to eating your food again,” Usopp admitts. “I've missed it.”

For the blink of an eye, Sanji's face opens up, his mouth stretching into that beautiful smile Usopp's not allowed himself to think about. It still looks just like he remembers, though.

 _All Blue_ , he thinks, just before Sanji seems to realize what he's doing and closes off again, _I could find All Blue in that smile of yours._

It's over as fast as it's begun, frown replacing laughter lines, an almost affronted look on his face now.

“Shit, I hope so, long-nose,” Sanji snorts, “I hope that you haven't been eating scorpions thinking 'Oh, I, the Great Captain Usopp won't need Sanji's cooking anymore now! This is so much better!'”

“Was that… Did you just try an impersonation?”

“If by _try_ you mean I _nailed_ that.”

Usopp laughs and his heart does a strange kind of somersault when Sanji grins back, his lips in an almost arrogant curl around his cigarette.

He blames this for his curiosity, for his need to ask more questions, always _more_ when it comes to Sanji.

“Alright. You trained and you cooked and you met nice people.”

“I didn't say they were nice,” Sanji interrupts him almost immediately. “I said they were _good_.”

“Where's the difference?”

“They were annoying as hell, for starters.” A thin gust of smoke gets blown into the air on his next exhale. “Kicking my ass everyday, chasing me around that damn island, always trying to talk to me, always getting on my case about—” The next drag on his cigarette seems more out of the need to hold on to something than out of necessity.

Usopp probaby would've missed his shaking hands, too, had he not been watching Sanji already, had he not been training to observe every miniscule shift in his surroundings for two years.

“On your case about what?” he asks.

Sanji throws him a long glance out of the corner of his eye, half-hidden behind cigarette smoke, unreadable.

“I'm—,” he starts, then seems to stumble over his own words, averting Usopp's eyes and breathing nicotine again.

It's a strange mix of old Sanji from before, new Sanji with all of his pristinely ironed armour, and another version Usopp's not sure he knows yet. Something unsure and _tender_ crawls over his face, the sight of it making Usopp's heart drum against his ribs in a rhythm he's not certain he wants to hear yet.

“So—,” Sanji tries again, stops again.

Does it even matter what Usopp wants? What he thinks he wants? He's played at being brave all his life, isn't this the time to finally stop pretending, to just _be_ , to let his heart reach out and want and _ache_.

“Sanji,” he starts.

“I like women,” Sanji says at the same time.

“Uhm.” Usopp squints at him. “Yes? I think. I think we all know that?” He does not want to point out the bloody tissues at Sanji's side.

“No, I mean, _yes_.” He blows a stream of smoke out of his nose like the comical version of an angry bull. “ _Shit_.”

“You like women,” Usopp prompts because they've beaten a crew of fishmen on steroids today and this day cannot get any weirder.

 _Do not touch_ , scream the stop signs Sanji has built around himself instead of walls like a normal person.

Well, Usopp's a pirate. Following laws is not really in the job description. And he's told himself to be braver, more reckless in the New World. This is his moment.

He reaches out, grasps Sanji's shoulder in an attempt of comfort, feels tense muscle and hard bones and a surprising shock of warmth.

“You can tell me,” he says.

The way Sanji's arm shakes under his fingers is the only warning he gets, then his hand is brushed off and before Usopp can even begin to feel hurt, Sanji grabs his head in both hands and presses his lips on his mouth.

For a few seconds, Usopp can only hang onto him, hands flailing in the air, his brain trying desperately to catch up with what's happening.

His heart seems to beat inside his mouth, it's _so loud_ , and for a moment he's ridiculously afraid of Sanji feeling it. But. Sanji's the one who started this. Sanji kissed him _first_ , Sanji _is still kissing him_.

That's when he starts kissing back.

It's wet and warm, their mouths moving against each other, open from the start because they're always either all in or all out, always either on different ends of the ship or sitting so close they're pressed against each other. It's a practiced distance, closer to a performance, to an act they have to keep up so their secrets don't come tumbling down on each other's feet.

This, however. This is the most honest Usopp has ever felt. For some reason, he thinks Sanji feels the same.

He hums against Sanji's lips, then hears it repeated back at him like an echo coming deep out of Sanji's chest.

It's everything Usopp's never dared to dream of, and more even than anything his lively imagination could've come up with. Because, yes, he maybe could've thought of Sanji's hands at the back of his head, grabbing into his hair, or how how warm and soft the skin just behind his ears feels. He could've imagined that Sanji's smile would taste like cigarettes and that he bites Usopp's lower lip before licking into his mouth again.

But he never would've guessed the little giddy chuckle that escapes him when Usopp pushes closer, or the way his breath hitches and Usopp can _feel_ it under fingers he lays at the hollow of Sanji's throat. He never would've dreamt of Sanji's kisses being all-devouring, like he can't get enough of Usopp's mouth, like he's _hungry._

These things are just happening, now, and they're so real, and it's so good.

They make Usopp bolder, too, so he grabs Sanji's thighs to pull him in, feels the muscles under his fingers shake, and Sanji moans into his mouth, a desperate, sudden sound that reverberates through both of them.

And then, just as suddenly as it's started, it's over, because Sanji flinches back, cursing, and Usopp tastes the copper on his tongue only a second before he sees Sanji clutching his nose again.

“No, no, _no_ ,” Usopp groans, going to spit out the blood onto the floor until he remembers that they're in a fucking palace and that's probably bad court ettiquette or something.

Sanji's crawled out of Usopp's lap — oh, oh, he really was in _Usopp's lap_ —, frantically looking for the tissue he dropped seemingly ages ago.

“Honestly, Sanji, you need to get a grip on this, ugh, this is disgusting.” Usopp starts trying to wipe his tongue on the back if his hand.

“It's not like I do it on purpose,” Sanji gripes back, picking up his discarded tissue.

“I think that's worse,” Usopp mutters. His hand looks red in the low light of the night, as if he'd been in a fistfight. It would almost be cool, if he didn't still have the metallic tang of blood in his mouth, paired with the horrible realization in his head that if it's blood out of Sanji's _nose_ , it's probably not _just_ blood. “ _Ugh_.”

“Shut up!” Sanji's growl is a weird mirror version of earlier tonight when he'd still been staring at mermaids. He's brought about ten feet between himself and Usopp again, leaning against a stone pillar. He looks pale in the light of the ocean, flecks of blue flickering over his face, ever-shifting with the pull and push of the waves.

Is it just blood loss or does this have any other reasons?

There's space between them again, space for Usopp's worries as well. They come rushing over and out of him, drowning him in a sea of himself, and isn't that the worst way to die.

“What was that?” he can't help but ask. He hears how his voice shakes, knows Sanji must hear it, too, but he still tries to swallow it down down down. Maybe they can still pretend this never happened. If Sanji wanted that.

 _I don't want that_ , he thinks and wants to hit himself. No, it wasn't supposed to be like this, he was supposed to be better, stronger, braver, he was supposed to be _not in love with Sanji anymore_. Because that's what it's always been, almost right from the start, and he has to face this truth now, in the worst possible way.

“I—,” Sanji starts.

And no, actually. Usopp is not brave. He does not want to hear it. All of Sanji's excuses, his apologies and half-truths. Sanji's always been so good at those.

“Don't play with me,” he says, voice like gravel in his throat. He's wanted Sanji for years, he still wants him, wants him so badly his whole body aches with the thought of having him, even more than the thought of not having him hurts. The latter he can push aside, he's been doing it for such a long time already. But having it dangling in front of his face is tortue. Is cruel.

“What?” Sanji narrows his eyes at him, the creases on his forehead deep and cutting.

“Don't _play_ with me,” Usopp repeats, maybe an octave higher than intended. “I can't… I'm not some girl on some island you can make heart-eyes at, I'm not a princess or a fucking mermaid you can obsess over and then forget.”

He wanted to be, sometimes. He even _tried_ to be, as best as he could, tried sweet smiles and cute honorifics, and presents, tried everything just so Sanji would notice him as much as he noticed Nami or Robin or Vivi or.

And yes, he realizes how useless this was, how he was too different, too much like himself, loud and lying and afraid, but also how he didn't even want to be noticed like Sanji noticed women in general.

 _Look at me, look at me_ , he'd wanted to scream, and he'd pushed that scream down until it took root deep in his stomach, small and cutting, longing compressed into a diamond.

Now, Sanji does look.

Usopp's not sure he's ready to be seen.

“Don't play with me,” he repeats, and it feels dangerously close to begging. “I can't be that.”

Sanji's face is half-curtained by hair, half-clouded by night. But there's a shift in his posture, his legs uncurling as he turns towards Usopp, dropping the tissue again.

“I learned some things,” he starts, voice almost painfully rough, “on Kamabakka Kingdom, I learned some stuff about… myself, I guess.”

“Like what? You like kissing guys?”

“Yeah,” Sanji says and the lines around his mouth seem rigid, set in stone, and a contrast to the way his eyes look so, so afraid. “And… kissing you, especially.”

None of them have moved but, suddenly, ten feet doesn't seem like such a distance anymore.

Usopp swallows, his mouth feels dry, his heartbeat's so loud, he can feel it in his teeth. “Oh. How come?”

“Just—” His fingers clench around nothing, no doubt itching for a cigarette that he doesn't reach for, for some reason. “Just you being you. I like that. I think I've liked that for a while.”

A breath gets stuck in Usopp's throat between all of these words wanting to bubble out of him. There's so many of them, they all get tangled and what comes out of his mouth in the end is something like, “hrchmnng.”

Sanji huffs a laugh at that, his the corners of his eye crinkling, a smile so soft Usopp feels it on his skin, like sunshine, or the warm waves of the sea between his fingers.

Something inside of Usopp wants to ask _How long?_ and _Why me?_ Something inside of him wants to ask Sanji if he's sure, if this isn't some kind of mistake, if he's confusing Usopp with someone else.

And these things will come up, of course they will, because two years is a long time to get braver and stronger, but it's also a long time to give new forms to all of his old doubts.

Now, however. Now, he can still feel the pressure of Sanji's mouth on his, can taste salt and cigarette smoke, and yeah, even that little bit of blood.

“Me too,” Usopp rasps, finding his voice again. “Liked you for a while, I mean.”

Sanji's eye flickers. “Yeah, I noticed.”

“You _knew_?”

“I guessed.”

Usopp groans into his hands, then falls back until he's lying flat on the cool marble tiles of the palace and staring up at the ceiling. It's so high up, there's almost no light reaching it. If he concentrates, if he lets his eyes get used to the darkness, he can still make out shapes, though, pictures getting clearer as the seconds tick by. Intricate designs cover the vaulted ceiling, mosaic of waves and swirls and flowing lines, some fish and sea shells in all hues of blue and green. Some of the pieces shimmer gold or silver, even in this low light.

It's beautiful.

He follows some of the lines until they meet or branch out, letting the repetitive pattern guide his breathing, his tangled thoughts.

This isn't as bad as he thinks it is. This is good, actually, he just has to remind himself before the urge to spin a tale forces its way out of him. He doesn't want this to be a story, an anecdote. Not if he can't live it first.

“Hey.”

A shadow falls over him, the polished tip of a black shoe pushes into his side.

“You okay?” Sanji asks.

Usopp looks up at him, tall and looming, the tip of a lit cigarette glowing in the dark.

He's Sanji, alright, he's Sanji and he's not Sanji, a mix of old and new and yet to be discovered. It's like with the mosaic above their heads, a lot of pieces painstakingly assembled into something extraordinary, far away and only visible if he lets his eyes get used to the dim lighting.

Usopp reaches out and up, tugs at the fabric of Sanji's pants. “Come here.”

For a second, Sanji hesitates, stills beneath Usopp's hand, before he follows the pull on his leg and lies down beside him. Cigarette still hanging in the corner of his mouth, he looks up at the ceiling. Breathes in, eyes growing wide when he sees what's up there.

Usopp watches him for a few minutes, tries to burn the details of this moment into his memory.

“Stop staring, long-nose,” Sanji says. He draws a breath, then breathes a plume of smoke towards the ceiling. “'S not like I'm going anywhere.”

“I know,” Usopp says. He feels heat rising in his cheeks but he's pretty sure Sanji's blushing, too, at least a bit. “I just like looking.”

Sanji huffs before turning his head. “Well, okay, then.” He takes another drag from his cigarette before pushing it out on the floor between them, his lips curling around that last breath of tobacco.

There are streaks of blood smeared on his cheeks and over his mouth, Usopp realizes. He reaches out, marvels at the way Sanji blinks at him but doesn't shy away as he puts his thumb there, softly rubbing over his skin. Sanji's mouth opens, just a little, when Usopp touches its corner, warm, wet breath ghosting over the tip of his finger. A jittery, smoldering kind of heat blooms in Usopp's stomach at the sight, deep and primal.

 _You're in the middle of Neptune's palace_ , a voice in his head whispers intently. It sounds dangerously close to Nami.

“You still got some blood there,” Usopp rasps.

“I'll clean it later.”

Usopp shifts his hand to Sanji's neck, and he doesn't plan to pull him closer, Sanji just _comes_ , leaning in.

This kiss is softer, less a desperate try to say something without having to say it, more an understanding. Things will need to be said, Usopp can already feel the words waiting at the back of his head, but for just a moment, everything's blissfully quiet.

The softness only marginally quiets his urge to roll on top of Sanji and press him to the cold floor, though. And since he kind of doesn't want to get arrested for public indecency just hours after escaping the palace's prison, he breaks the kiss.

“Um,” Usopp manages to get out. He still has his hand in Sanji's hair, he can still feel his breath on his face. It does weird things to his ability to think. “Wait. We need to… not do this. Not here. Not. Um.”

Sanji blinks at him, his visible eye wide, pupil so dilated it's almost swallowed the blue around it.

“Yeah, yeah,” he breathes. Swallows. Then, he rolls away, Usopp's hand falling away from him to bring just enough space between them again.

“Ship,” Usopp clears his throat, “Sunny, I mean. Later. We can.”

“Yeah,” Sanji says. He smiles at the ceiling, face red, chest heaving. “Later.”

They lie like that, for a while, Usopp doesn't know how long. He just listens to Sanji breathe, listens to the sound of the ocean behind the bubble, the distant noise of the party.

They lie like that until he's pretty sure Sanji's fallen asleep.

And maybe he does know this Sanji already, partly at least. Maybe this is Sanji on Skypiea, his hand holding Usopp's, his shoulder bumping into him during long bonfire nights. Maybe this is Sanji on Water 7, his voice hoarse as he kicks Luffy for telling Usopp to leave, and even hoarser as he screams when Usopp lands on Sunny's deck. Maybe this is Sanji bringing Usopp his favourite drink into his workshop just because he asked, maybe this is Sanji hiding a smile behind a curtain of hair when Usopp grins at him.

So, yes, maybe he's gotten glimpses of this Sanji all this time. And maybe, just maybe, Sanji's getting to see himself like this, now, too.

Usopp sits up. He wants to reach out, wants _desperately_ to touch Sanji's mouth again, or his hair, or his jaw, or simply the hem of his pants. But he keeps his hands to himself, no matter how they might itch.

He'll have time, later.

Later.

To discover this Sanji, every part of him.

At some point, when Usopp feels about ready to fall asleep himself, Zoro trods in, swaying slightly but that could also be Usopp's imagination, fired up by his rapidly beating, happy _happy_ heart.

“What're you doing here?” Usopp asks when Zoro drops down a few feet away from him.

“Sake's gone,” Zoro yawns. He eyes Sanji's unmoving form on the floor. “Did he die?”

It's probably for the best that Sanji's kind of out of it already because Usopp doesn't think he'd have the energy to break up a fight between these two.

“He's okay,” he says, tugging his mouth into a tired grin. “Just. Too many mermaids.”

Zoro looks at him, then, one eye intent and flickering from Sanji to Usopp. To Usopp's _mouth_.

“You,” he starts, squinting a bit, and gesturing to his own chin. “You got something. There.”

“Um.” Usopp wipes his hand over his mouth, and sure enough it still comes back slightly red.

Zoro's eye is wide as he looks from Usopp to Sanji and back, realization dawning in arguably the most horrible way. “You two…”

“Oh my god,” Usopp groans, because isn't this just his luck.

“Ugh,” Zoro says, his face pulling into a grossed out grimace. “Really?”

Usopp starts to argue, to defend on instinct, already spinning a tale in his head, every verse more far-fetched than the other.

He stops himself, though, mouth hanging open.

 _Be brave_. The thought shoots through him as he looks down at Sanji. He could swear he's still smiling in his sleep.

“Maybe,” is what he says in the end.

Zoro just looks at him, head tilted to the side.

“Don't judge,” Usopp can't help but add. “Please, I—” He doesn't know what he'd do if Zoro told him to think about it. To consider the crew, to consider _Sanji._ These feelings have been a part of him for too long, he's not sure how far his new-found bravery will reach.

But Zoro just sighs and frowns and shrugs like he does on any other day of the week. “I don't judge.” Still, he sneers a bit. “You really should clean up though. That looks disgusting.”

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr @mondfahrt


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